Helen Skelton has revealed the full details of the scam that defrauded her of £70,000.

The 36-year-old Countryfile presenter has said she was "embarrassed" about falling for a trick in which she was informed of suspicious activity on her bank account and led her to revealing details that saw her life savings being taken.

She has decided to share the full details of her experience in a documentary for ITV, so that others can see how easy it is to fall into the fraudsters' trap.

Helen revealed that she was sucked in by the trap because the caller seemed so 'nice and genuine' about a scam that had allegedly happened on her account.

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The former Blue Peter presenter said she is "reasonably financially savvy" and that being freelancer meant "we’ve got a comfortable life but we try to be sensible as neither of us have got reliable long-term jobs."

The rollercoaster nature of freelancing meant that Helen had to plan better for the future.

She continued: "Most people earn more as they get older, but that doesn’t apply in our professions: I don’t know if I’m going to make any money at all from one year to the next. We don’t even have a pension."

Helen emphasised that she is so careful online: "I only do transactions on my home computer over locked wifi and generally I don’t pay for anything online."

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She then received a phone call from her bank, so she thought. Helen recalls: "The guy on the other end said there had been suspicious activity on my account and that someone had got through my telephone banking security.

"At that point he asked if I’d had any emails that could be bogus and had I done anything unusual like renew my TV licence. When I said I had, he said that must have been it."

Helen continued: "I can’t believe how clever they were. He didn’t make me feel like I was giving him any other information - so it made me feel like I was in control.

"I was saying, 'Oh my days, I’m so embarrassed,' and he was reassuring me, saying this was happening a lot, it was foxing their top security guys."

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Helen was then informed that her account would be frozen while the problems were sorted out. She recalls: "I remember thinking that I had nothing to worry about."

When she looked online though, Helen found dozens of transactions to "foreign sounding names," on a "single direct debit reference."

With panic setting in, Helen went to the local branch of her bank and her worst fears were confirmed.

She said: "I was panicking but I believed my bank were on top of it.

"But then I sat down with a bank teller who told me nothing had ever been frozen - my online account and debit card were still active but there had clearly been suspicious transactions and she would contact the fraud team."

TV presenter Helen Skelton at home in front of the cameras (Image: PA)

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Helen revealed that there was no way of reclaiming the money as she had inadvertently allowed the fraudster access to her account.

She continued: "My fraud fell under what is known as a 'push payment', which means I unwittingly authorised the scammer to access my bank account and left my bank under no legal obligation to refund me."

The good news for Helen is that the Financial Ombudsman and Action Fraud — the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime — has learned that her bank, as a gesture of goodwill, they have refunded around 90 per cent of her lost money but not everyone will be quite so lucky.

Helen admitted: "I know I’m very lucky. I had a lot of support but I also really had to push. Not everyone is able to do that."